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coil tap (parallel/series)

F

Feast

May 12, 2007
153
1
Massachusetts
#1
hey guys,

I have been hearing from many people that series and parallel wiring affect your sound and tone differently. Not in the near I was wondering on how it would change the sound of a stingray w/ a single humbucker.

I did a search and could not find anything to help me, so I thought Id start a new thread

Is coil tap the same thing as switching the wiring from parallel to series or vice versa?

Is a knob to switch from series to parallel a simple install If I were to ever want to put this on my bass?

If anyone has done this can you also post pictures please. thanks
 
#2
A series/parallel mod is pretty simple and can be done to any bass. A coil tap is NOT the same thing. Coil tapping can only be done on humbucking pickups, basically it allows you to turn your humcukers into single coils. This is useful for going back and forth between a Stingray sound and a Jazz Bass sound as an example. Coil tapping is not as easy a mod and it can only be done if the humbucking pickup in question is wired a certain way to allow it.

Series/parallel has to do with how the pickup(s) are wired. On a Jazz Bass, for example, the standard setup would be two single-coils wired in parallel. Basically, they are wired as two seperate pickups. Switching to series would, to put it very simply, turn those two pickups into one large humbucking pickup. You lose a lot of treble attack and gain a lot of low mid depth....kind of like a P-bass. It can be done on single p/u basses (P-bass, Sterling, Stingray5), but its more useful on a 2 p/u bass IME. Hope this helps.
 
#4
Actually, for the bass in question you will need a 4-conductor cable for both series/parallel and coil-tapping. Stingray4 pickup is actually 2 single-coils (connected in parallel by default?). If that pickup has 4 wires coming out of it than both is possible. As a matter if fact Stingray5 comes with that config by default.

Additionally I think the term coil-tapping is wrong but it became de-facto standard. The actual term is coil-splitting.

Here is a good diagram: http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/schematics/musicman_3way.html
 

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